


Bound

by tolieawake



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Happily Ever After, M/M, There will be happiness, and fluff, because I am a sucker for that, non-con is referenced only and NOT between the main pairing, we will get there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4638099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolieawake/pseuds/tolieawake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver Queen is a Beta. Robert Queen is a philanthropic businessman, loving father, and loyal friend. Father and son were lost at sea when their yacht, the<i> Queen's Gambit</i> sunk. In 2007 that is what the world, and Oliver, knows.</p>
<p>Oliver Queen is an Omega. His father failed the city, and lied to his son. Survival is costly. Wounds leave scars. Bonds can harm or strengthen. Home is family. Life brings pain. That is what Oliver learns.</p>
<p>Returning home after 5 years away, Oliver seeks to hide his Omega status, just as his father did in the past, all the while still mourning the loss of his Alpha, Slade Wilson.</p>
<p>His city needs saving, his father's memory to be honoured. But not all is as it seems.</p>
<p>(basically my version of an Alpha/Omega Slade/Oliver, with a happy ending)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He stands at the window, staring out the city that has never felt so little like home before. He doesn't know its smells, its sounds. When he breathes in, all he can taste is the stale hospital air – filtered and then refiltered again through the air conditioning system.

His left hand flexes, dropping down to press against his side, just beneath his hip. Tracing the scar there through the thin cotton of the pants he has been given to wear. His right hand twitches, thumb pressing against his index and middle fingers in a well-practiced motion.

The door opens, room flooding – suddenly – with the scent of mother. But he doesn't turn. Not until he hears her voice.

When he does so, he raises hesitant eyes to look into hers. Her hand is pressed against her breast, eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears. A tremulous smile hangs onto the edges of her lips.

“Oliver,” she repeats.

“Mom,” he says. He steps forward, letting her draw him into a hug, his arms coming up to wrap around her. Something he hasn't felt in five years. His breath hitches.

The doctor is right – he isn't the son that left her all those years ago.

The island changed him. What he went through changed him. Learning to survive changed him. But more than that, he changed. Intrinsically, it seemed. In a way he had never expected. But without his father there to stop the change...

His left arm drops, fingers pressing into the scar once more.

*

[one hour earlier]

“There's one more thing I'd like to to talk to you about, Oliver,” Doctor Lam says, placing down the file he has been reading from.

Oliver looks up, tilting his head to the side in a question.

Lam forces a smile. “As you are no doubt aware, your particular dynamic comes with its fair share of... inconveniences. I know your father used to arrange for your suppressants. It would be best to go back on them before you leave here and any of your family or friends become confused as to your proper dynamic.”

Oliver blinks. He'd known someone had to have known. Someone had to have been supplying his father with the suppressants with which he so liberally dosed his son. It appears that man is Doctor Lam.

“I'll be fine,” he says.

The Doctor frowns. “Oliver,” he says, “I realise you're going through an enormous transition right now. Things are changing – have changed – so drastically for you over the last week or so. This is just one more change. The sooner you are back on the suppressants, the better -”

“I don't need them.” Pushing himself to his feet, Oliver paces away from the bed, over to the window to stare down at the city. His city (it didn't feel like his city yet).

“I'm not sure that's a decision to be making lightly.” The Doctor's brows furrow as he speaks. “You may change your mind later, and then it will be too late.”

“I don't need them,” Oliver repeats. “I found, other, ways to conceal my dynamic.”

Sitting back, the Doctor nods, giving a discreet sniff as he does so. Oliver knows that he won't find anything. Won't smell the dynamic now thrumming beneath his skin. Yao Fei's herbs had been useful for more than simply curing infection and illness.

And he's spent the last two years pretending that he isn't missing half of himself. That his dynamic is the perfectaly bland, always known, uttterly unnewsworthy Beta.

“Very well,” the Doctor says. “If you need my help with anything, anything at all – please do let me know.”

Oliver doesn't speak. The Doctor leaves.

*

Pulling up in front of the house, Oliver has the car window cracked open, head tilted towards it to just take in all the scents he was never able to before. The soft wash of the grass, the pungent dash of roses as they pass the rose garden, the grittier feel of old stone, history, in his nostrils. But beyond and beneath that, everywhere, the scent of family.

Not home, not anymore. But family.

The car stops and he steps out, making sure to grab his case – the only thing he really considers his anymore. Those things he left behind are no longer his. They are the remnants of a life he left behind five years ago and knows he will never get back.

That was the life of Oliver Queen, playboy, billionaire heir, and Beta.

He has changed too much to really be that person anymore. Everything that is his he carries in that case. And instinct won't let him relinquish it up to anyone else, even if he wasn't trying to protect his secrets so fiercly.

Even before he steps into the entryway he can feel his skin beginning to crawl. There is the scent of a foreign Alpha here, in the house. Where there should be none. Not like this. There were likely a couple of Alpha's on the staff, but this scent is much deeper entrenched, the way an Alpha's scent gets when they live somewhere. Make it their home. Mark it.

It makes Oliver uneasy in a way he refuses to show, and he ends up brushing past Walter (he has vague memories of the man, nothing concrete beyond knowing him as someone he saw around his father a bit), in order to greet Raisa.

The Omega had practically raised him, and her soft presence soothes him in a way Walter's Alpha can't. Not now.

And then Thea is there – young Alpha scent proceeding before her down the stairs. But she is family, and Oliver has no hesitation in stepping towards her, wrapping her up in his arms and pressing his face into her neck, drawing her scent deep into himself.

She was too young to have presented when he left, so her scent has changed, but not enough, not nearly enough, to not be recognisable.

He has missed her so much. A rush of protective determination washes over him. He will protect her with everything he has. She is his family, and he would do anything for family.

*

_The air is full of the tang of salt, lying heavy against his clothes and skin. It sticks in his eyelashes, gumming them together, and bloats his tongue with thirst. His clothes have dried somewhat – still damp in places – and rub harshly against his skin._

_The lifeboat is small. So small. And he's so tired and thirsty – his hunger had dissipated some time ago, though he knows his body simply gave up trying to get him to eat when it could focus on trying to get him to drink instead._

_Knew, though he refused to acknowlege it, that he would likely die here. Under the sweltering sun and the grit of the salt. A drifting grave with his father and one of the crewmembers – he isn't sure of the man's name, which just makes him, when he can spare the thought, feel even more guilty for his thoughtless actions._

_Sara is lost somewhere to the depths – never coming up again after the boat sank. The other crew members, too, lost beneath the waves._

_He tries to swallow, but it sticks in his throat._

_Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink* Isn't that how it goes? Or something like that?_

_He jerks awake to the sound of the gun, eyes wide and staring as he watches the unknown crewmember pitch over the side of the liferaft. He's pushed himself up against the side, an automatic flight reaction sinking in as he turns to stare at his father._

_“I'm sorry,” Robert says. “So sorry, son. I should have done more for you, I know I should have. But I was scared. I love you, you have to believe that. Find someone who will protect you now that I can't. Be strong. Right my wrongs. I believe in you. Survive.”_

_The sound of the gun going off once more will haunt his dreams for years._

*

Tommy is much as Oliver remembers him, though he isn't sure how much his friend is trying to simply fit back into how and who they were. The Beta moves around excitedly, gesticulating widely, and Oliver wants to smile at him.

Unease, however, gnaws at his guts, and he wonders if Tommy can sense anything different about him. Anything other than being marooned on an island for five years, that is. Maybe he should have taken the Doctor's advice.

“Don't be stupid, kid.”

Shaking his head, Oliver brushes the voice aside and follows Tommy into the dining room.

Dinner is stilted and Oliver wishes, with a sharp, aching pang that is so much sharper now that he is somewhere he used to call home, for that other home he had – for just a little while.

He barely pays attention to Tommy, is short with Thea, despite wanting to just press up against her, reassure himself that she's all right, she's safe, and here, and give her anything she wants.

He instinctively catches Raisa, makes a mistake when he speaks to her in Russian, snaps at Walter. It's stupid, he knows it's stupid, but the Alpha has gotten under his skin. There, in his family home where he didn't expect him. It's been years, and Oliver's learnt to tamp down, to deal with, his reaction to Alphas. But something about having an Alpha here, where they expect him to a make a home, makes it too much for him.

Nonetheless, he finds himself asking to be excused before leaving. Instinct pushing him to stay and wait for a signal he could go. He could have ignored it, perhaps he should have – acted more like he did before he left – but he's so drained and so used to relying on his instincts to survive that he doesn't bother.

*

The bed is too soft, in all the wrong ways. He'd gotten used to sleeping rough. The luxury of a bed in the Queen Mansion feels all wrong. It dips and sinks beneath him, and Oliver knows he's going to need to get a firmer mattress. This one may provide comfort, but it makes it harder to spring out of, to escape, should it be necessary. And every millisecond counts.

So he lies himself down before the open window, right arm coming up to curl over himself – a hardly satisfying mockery of the warm arm that used to band around him – hand digging into the scar just below his left hip.

The thunder and lightning reminds him of the boat, the storm, Sara, the liferaft, and everything that came after. But it isn't what wakes him so instinctively, raring for a fight.

There is an Alpha in his room – where no Alpha should be, none but the one who is lost to him. This Alpha is not his. Not known. Not family. And Oliver reacts.

Seeing his mother's scared face staring up at him is like a slap to the face and he scrambles away, horrified and panting and gasping apologies. Wrong, wrong, wrong, his instincts scream. Because she is his mother and he is meant to protect her, not harm her.

He doesn't sleep again that night, instead lying awake and wishing for a time and place that is lost to him, fingers digging into his scar.

*

When the first fingers of sunlight trickle into his room, Oliver rises. He washes swiftly in the shower, before using some of the herbs Yao Fei had shown him to rub over his body. When crushed, they release a softly acrid scent. Mixed with his own natural scent, it changes, muting, mimicking that of a Beta.

Dressing, Oliver lets his hands linger over his scars. He knows each one of them, how they were earned, where they came from, who, or what, gave them to him.

He flinches away from the mess of raised scarring on his left side, just below one of the long lines indicating a long-healed knife-wound.

Instinctively, his hand drops down to the scar below his hip instead, kneading the flesh there almost desperately.

By the time he is dressed, he looks somewhat normal. He isn't, he knows that, knows that he's, in no way, what anyone in the city, let alone the elite rich circles he was meant to exist in, would consider normal.

But his scars are covered, his scent mutated into that of a Beta, and the traces of his restless night scrubbed from his face.

*

_He drags himself up the shore, the sand and small shells biting into him as he does so. The raft lies behind him, tugged up just enough to not wash away, which had taken all his strength._

_He knows he needs water. Food. Shelter. But for the moment he is too tired, his eyes refusing to stay open or his limbs to move. He just needs to rest for a moment._

_He doesn't know where he is, if there is anyone nearby. He hopes there is – a thought he will later come to to both curse and bless._

*

Leaving his room, Oliver heads towards Thea's. Instinct and simple familial concern pushing him to seek her out. The last time he was with family, they had never been far apart. The thought makes his chest ache, heart clenching painfully, but he pushes through it, just as he has for the past couple of years.

As he approaches her room, he realises that Thea is not alone. He doesn't recognise the other scent, but notes that it is a female Beta. Another scent washes to his nose and he pauses, frowning.

Thea and her friend hurry to hide the powder littering the desk when he enters, but Oliver's sharp eyes catch the movement and his nose picks out the smell easily. He wonders how no-one else (his mother, Walter) notices the scent, before reminding himself that years of survival, and the bond, have sharpened his senses beyond what most people even imagine possible.

“Hey,” he says, leaning in the doorway.

“Ollie!” Thea smiles, too bright, obviously covering up their activities, but Olivers smiles back anyway, feeling a pang.

“No-one's called me that in years, Speedy,” he says.

“Worst. Nickname. Ever.” Thea replies.

Oliver hums, tilting his head to the side. “What?” he asks, “always chasing after me as a kid? I thought it fit pretty well.” He eyes dart to the desk. “Maybe it still does.”

The other girl pushes past him, throwing a goodbye over her shoulder and Oliver focuses on his sister. He takes a moment to just drink her in. There were times on the Island that he thought he'd never see her again.

“I have something for you,” he says, entering the room.

Thea's eyebrows rise and she scoffs. “You did not come back from a deserted island with a souvenir,” she says.

Holding his hand out, Oliver drops the stone arrowhead into her hand. Frowning down at it, Thea traces over the markings with her fingers.

“It's a hozen,” Oliver explains. “It symbolises reconnecting.”

Thea looks up at him, her eyes bright. He can smell the salt of her unshed tears, and forces a small smile to his face. In the distance, but coming closer, he hears footsteps. Smells Tommy approaching.

“I always hoped, one day, it could help me reconnect with you.”

“A rock. That is sweet!” Tommy enters the room with his usual charm and boisterousness. Rolling his eyes at Thea, Oliver turns to him.

They venture out into the city, Tommy driving them around. Oliver keeps his window cracked, breathing in deeply to try and memorise the scents of the city. To map it out in the way he was taught on the island.

“Scent is our best sense, kid, but most people don't even think about it. Too busy focusing on what they see. Put the blindfold on.”

A trip to visit Laurel that goes, predictably, not that well (although he had to try, had to apologise, if nothing else – it didn't matter whether she accepted it, just that he did what he could), and Oliver is heading back to the car with Tommy.

His head is full of thoughts of Sara, the Island, regrets. His left hand presses against his side, fingers on his right rubbing together.

The attack takes him by surprise, the sedative in the dart entering his bloodstream far too quickly for his liking.

*

When he wakes, Oliver is surrounded. The men are wearing masks, deliberately meant to terrify. But he has seen things much worse than a twisted mask. What fear should he have of masks when he has seen what men can do to each other?

Tommy is lying nearby, still unconscious. Despite his missing half, Oliver still enjoys many of the benefits of the bond (but not the ones he wants most).

The men question him, asking about his father. Oliver tenses, feeling his bonds. Takes in his surroundings. Plans.

Five years of survival have taught him what to do in such a situation – by the time he finishes the men are dead.

*

_The arrow slams through Oliver's shoulder with a burst of pain. He cries out, falling to his knees and then down onto his side. He thinks he's going to die._

_Yao Fei is not like anyone Oliver has known before. Despite shooting him, the man seems to want Oliver to live – and forces him to learn how to do so._

_Slowly, Oliver starts to recover. The pain in his shoulder is still there, healing slowly. But it is the itch under his skin that worries him._

_He has not had a proper shower in weeks, has only one pair of clothing, and really doesn't think he will be winning any best-smelling awards. But it isn't the scent of sweat or dirt or fear or pain that concerns him._

_He thinks his scent is changing._

_Which is something it should not do._

_Each day, it changes a little more – at first he didn't even notice it. Combined with the itch beneath his skin – which he calls an itch because he doesn't know what else to call it. He doesn't want to scratch it, not like a proper itch. But it's there, constant, urging him to do something – he just doesn't know what._

_Sitting in the cave, plucking a bird for their dinner, Oliver frowns as he focuses once more on the changes in his scent. It's become softer, sweeter, yet stronger. He shakes his head. Perhaps the island is simply playing with his mind. All he needs is a good shower and things will be back to normal._

_Footsteps approach and he looks up to see Yao Fei entering the cave. The man's eyes shoot immediately to Oliver and he pauses, taking a deep breath in. A small frown crosses Yao Fei's face._

_“Omega,” he says._

_Oliver frowns. “What?” he asks._

_“You. Omega.”_

_Heart thumping hard in his chest, Oliver shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I'm Beta. Always have been.”_

_“Omega,” Yao Fei repeats, motioning towards the bird. “Continue.”_

_Oliver turns back to the bird as the older man moves around the cave. He takes some herbs from one of his stashes, hanging them up in places. Oliver frowns, wondering what he's doing. Why. He can't help but think it's in direct response to the fact that, for some reason, Yao Fei seems to think he's an Omega._

_But Oliver's not an Omega, he can't be. He's a Beta. It's what all his doctors forms, school records, everything, says. Besides, he knows enough to know that Omega and Beta dynamics are vastly different – he'd know if he was an Omega. Wouldn't he?_


	2. Omega

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: for referenced and inferred rape/non-con. Nothing explicit is stated, but it is heavily implied. Also warnings for violence and torture. This really isn't a happy chapter.
> 
> (I do promise fluff in the future, however)

“Ollie!” Thea runs to him, arms coming up to wrap tightly around the brother she thought she had lost – only to gain him once more and then have him kidnapped. Her head turns, nose pressing into his neck to breath deeply.

 

“Hey Speedy,” Oliver says, stepping backwards and smiling down at her. He lifts one hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I'm fine,” he says.

 

Thea narrows her eyes, taking him in. She wants to draw him back into her arms, press up against him and scent him until she's certain he's safe and alive and there. But she also remembers her mother's warning – that Oliver has been through a lot, and he may no longer be comfortable with things he was in the past.

 

Still, Thea's instincts scream at her, and she can't quite let go of his hand.

 

Oliver squeezes her hand tight in reply.

 

“Oliver!” Moira hurries over to him, ignoring the fact that members of the elite society to which she belongs must never be seen to hurry.

 

“I'm okay, Mom,” he replies, reaching out with his other arm to tug her into a quick hug before stepping back.

 

Oliver's skin tingles, instincts screaming at him. He is here, with his family, and all he wants to do is draw them in close and scent them until all he can smell is the scent of family and safety and love. But he also knows that, with the adrenaline that pounded through his system not so long ago, the scent of his herbs may be fading, rubbing off, and he can't risk it. Can't let them know.

 

So he keeps himself a step away, holding hands, smiling, all the while dying a little on the inside.

 

“Here,” Walter says as he enters the room, “why don't we go sit down. I know the police will want to ask you two some questions.”

 

Oliver nods, glancing over at Tommy as their small group moves into one of the sitting rooms. It's so strange to think that there is someone he can call – someone to report something like a kidnapping to, to let it be their responsibility.

 

It isn't something he's used to.

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_

 

It is not much longer before Oliver cannot deny it any more. His scent has changed. No longer does he give off the muted, dry scent of a Beta. Instead, it has been replaced by the soft, sweeter scent of an Omega.

 

He doesn't know what to think of it.

 

At night, lying awake as he stares up at the ceiling of the cave he now lives in, he feels the tremours run through his fingers. The knots twisting together in his stomach.

 

Dynamic is such a simple thing – something everyone knew about themselves. He had always known his – and now he knows it was wrong.

 

How could he not have known?

 

As a Beta, Oliver didn't pay much attention to finding out more about Omegas. Or Alphas. He hadn't really cared – not beyond knowing how to bed them. With only the cave roof to watch him, he trembles with the fear of not knowing his own body.

 

What could possibly change next?

 

*

 

Yao Fei wakes him in the morning. Stretching, feeling the pull where scar tissue has mostly replaced his arrow wound, Oliver blinks sleep out of his eyes and breathes deep.

 

“Good,” Yao Fei tells him. “Breath. Tell me what you smell.”

 

Oliver frowns. “The island,” he says.

 

“No. Breath. Tell.”

 

Concentrating, he draws breath into his lungs once more, focusing on the scents that are brought to him. “Stone,” he says. “The cave. Smoke, from the fire last night. Those weird herbs you have all over the place here.”

 

“How many?”

 

Another breath. “Two, no, three. Three different kinds.”

 

“Good.”

 

Opening eyes he'd shut in order to concentrate better, Oliver turns to Yao Fei. “You got another type of herb?” he says.

 

Yao Fei nods.

 

“How was I able to tell all of that?” Oliver asks.

 

“You pay attention,” Yao Fei replies. “And you change – Omega better at scents than Beta.”

 

Right. He thought he'd heard something about that somewhere before – not that he'd ever paid all that much attention to, well, anything that wasn't what he wanted in that moment. Omegas and Alphas had a slightly stronger sense of smell than Betas. Necessary as they used it to scent each other out.

 

“Here.” Yao Fei hands over some of the herbs, motioning to Oliver to rub them against his skin. “Omega seen as weak,” the man explains. “Beta, not so much. Omega easier to smell. Beta harder. You smell Beta.”

 

Oliver frowns, having spent various times over the last few weeks arguing with Yao Fei about whether or not he was an Omega. But, as he rubs the herbs over his skin, automatically following the older man's orders, he realises what he means.

 

Because as Oliver rubs the herbs against his skin, the soft scent that wafts up from him changes in their wake, shifting back to a dull, dry Beta.

 

Following Yao Fei out of the cave and into their day – Oliver determines to learn as much as he can about his changing body – and what he can do with it. After all, as Yao Fei keeps reminding him, every little bit helps him to survive.

 

*

 

[Starling City – 2012]

 

With the police officers leaving, drawing of the guy in the hood in tow, Oliver relaxes back against the seat behind him. It only takes a moment for the scent lingering on the edge of his senses to register, and then he is springing to his feet, turning to head upstairs.

 

He makes some flimsy excuse, tension coiling tight as that sweetness in the scent drifts towards him. Thea watches him go with a frown on her face, but doesn't follow after him.

 

Reaching his room, Oliver quickly shuts the door and strips off his clothing, dumping it into the laundry basket. A quick shower and he is scrubbing himself down with the herbs once more. Too much adrenaline, or sweat, or fear, or any other strong emotion, really, and they begin to lose the ability to hide his natural scent and replace it with the scent of a Beta.

 

That is something he learnt the hard way on the island.

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_

 

The men that burst from the forest take Oliver completely by surprise. Focused on retrieving the rabbit (and grumbling internally along the way), he  had not been paying attention to his surroundings.

 

They overpower him, dragging him away with them, a tight hand over his mouth preventing him from screaming to Yao Fei for help.

 

Their faces are covered, and they appear to be wearing some kind of uniform – though not one that he recognises. His heart beats hard in his chest, pounding away.  He is taken to a pit, where he is left. It is a part of the island that Oliver has not seen before. 

 

His breath comes harsh through his throat and he furiously blinks back against the fear and frustration.  He doesn't know who these men are, what they are doing on the island, or what they want. All he does know is that they have captured him for some reason and refuse to respond to anything he says.

 

B y the time someone comes for him, Oliver is unsure whether he is more scared, frustrated, or simply beyond caring. His mouth is dry, throat parched. It has been some hours at least since he last drank. Even the small stream that he had worried so much about drinking from when  Yao Fei first took him to it seems much desired by that point.

 

Two of the masked men lead him through a camp. There are jeeps and tents and trunks full of supplies. Oliver stares around in wonder at how much there is.

 

Not that long ago, he would have been fascinated by what was there, now he is simply fascinated by so many signs of other people.

 

Still, he is bound, his captors ignore him, and the fear he hasn't been able to quite shake since they first grabbed him sits low and heavy in his gut.

 

There is a man waiting in the tent he is taken to.  The man speaks English, smiles, and pours a glass of water. Despite the other man's words, Oliver can feel a crawling sensation wash over his skin. He doesn't trust this Fyers, or what he says. And the glass of water seems too much a taunt to ignore.

 

So Oliver lies. He says he doesn't know Yao Fei. Refuses to give the other man up.

 

And then he learns about pain.

 

The man who enters the room is all Alpha, the scent proceeding before him. Oliver's focus on learning and deciphering scents ensures that there is no way he can not know this man is an Alpha.

 

The Alpha says nothing, simply begins to carve into his flesh with a knife. Oliver screams.  It hurts, sharp and burning at first, before settling into a roaring throb as the Alpha begins the next cut. He has never felt anything like it before.

 

T ears sting at his eyes, his throat aches from his yells, and his weight drags heavily against his bound wrists, holding him upright.

 

Beneath the  coppery tang of the blood, the sting and throb of the pain, and the overwhelming scent of his own fear, Oliver doesn't notice it at first.

 

But his scent changes.

 

His skin sweats in fear, adrenaline rushes through his veins with no where to go. And the  muting, deceptive effect of Yao Fei's herbs begins to wane.

 

P anting from the pain, Oliver almost doesn't realise that the Alpha has paused. The knife dips to the side, slick and red with Oliver's blood.

  
The Alpha breathes in.

 

“Omega,” he growls.

 

Oliver freezes. His heart thumps, hard, in his chest, before racing faster than ever before. Instinctively, he tries to pull back, to make himself smaller, find somewhere to hide. But his wrists are bound above him, hanging him from the roof  of the tent, and there is nowhere for him to go.

 

The Alpha steps closer.

 

Oliver leans his body away. Beneath the pain and the fear there is a new terror that he doesn't fully understand yet.

 

Fyers, who had re-entered the tent not long ago, cocks his head to one side. “Ah,” he says, eyes appraising as they rake over Oliver. “I can understand why you would wish to hide that.”

 

Oliver doesn't – not really. He doesn't fully understand why his father kept this secret from him for so long (did his mother even know? He isn't sure). He doesn't fully understand why Yao Fei says that an Omega would be seen as weaker and a Beta as stronger.

 

But he does know the stereotypes – as far removed from this island as his old life is.

 

An Omega, the stereotype says, is the weaker dynamic. They rely on strong Alphas to protect and provide  for  them, while they look after the home and bear young.  Omegas go into heat (and Oliver can't even remember how often that's mean to happen – but is incredibly thankful it hasn't happened to him yet). Heat where they become slaves to their hormones, seeking out an Alpha to breed them.

 

An Omega, in the elite world of the rich in which he grew up, is meant as ornamentation. They do not hold positions of power, and are simply there to contribute to the family.

 

None of this quite explains the sudden terror he can feel building up in him.

 

Is it just terror that someone else knows? A secret that even Oliver himself didn't know until after reaching the island? Somehow, he thinks not.

 

Fyers smirks. “A Bonded Omega is an obedient Omega,” he says, looking over at the Alpha. Oliver blinks – it's a phrase he's heard before, though he'd never paid it too much attention, having not thought it would ever apply to him. As a Beta, he could neither be bound nor bond anyone else.

 

Only he's not a Beta anymore.

 

The Alpha steps forward,  his scent hammering hard at Oliver, even as those hands that so deftly used a knife to cut into him now pull his tattered shirt from his shoulders.  A few swift flicks of the knife, and his shirt is cut away, leaving his chest bare. 

 

The Alpha turns, giving Fyers a look.

 

“Yes, of course,” the man says. He waves one hand towards the opening of the tent. “I'll just leave you to it, shall I?” he asks, chuckling as he leaves.

 

Oliver swallows. He may not have paid too much attention to  anything they tried to teach him in school about Omegas, but there is no way he could have missed hearing about the Bond.

 

Bonding was something done between Alphas and Omegas. The Alpha would Bond the Omega, who would then be bound to the Alpha for life.  It isn't something he wants with this Alpha.

 

Really it's not something he's ever thought about having with any Alpha.

 

The Alpha's hands drop to his trousers and Oliver closes his eyes – because he knows how a Bonding comes about. The Alpha takes the Omega, and while doing so, bites down into their flesh, that bite becoming the bonding mark.  In most so-called civilised countries, an unwanted bonding carries harsh punishment for the Alpha, in some cases including death. Somehow, Oliver doesn't think this particular Alpha is too worried about that.

 

*

 

[Starling City – 2012]

 

Taking a deep breath, Oliver turns and leaves his room. Thea is pacing nearby, and pauses when she sees him. Oliver offers up a small smile, but knows that it falls flat when she grimaces back at him.

 

They stand there for a moment, the gulf of time and experiences stretching out between them.

 

Oliver breaks first, turning away to head down the stairs. He wants to stay. Wants to press up against her and comfort her. Knows she wants to comfort him. But it's been so long since he properly accepted comfort from another, and he fears that if he does so now, he won't be able to stop himself from telling her at least some of the truth.

 

Besides, he's meant to be a Beta – someone who is less driven by instinct.

 

It feels false, and hollow. He's changed. He's no longer the carefree and selfish young man who left on his father's yacht. But he's not quite sure how to pretend to be a Beta without pretending to be who he was.

 

Because in the past he never had to pretend – he didn't know any different.

 

And so much of who he is, who he has become, is based on  his status as Omega. On what he learnt, the changes brought about in his body, and the ways to use his status to his advantage.

 

So how can he show his family any of that when he's still pretending to be the Beta they lost?

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_

 

Body aching, eyes gritty from a lack of any tears left to shed, Oliver simply hangs there. He can feel the blood seeping around the ropes binding his wrists, but pays it little heed.

 

On his right side, just below and merging into one of the knife-wounds, is a Bite. It stings and pulls, his flesh torn and  weeping blood.

 

Beneath his skin, a new sensation crawls, something foreign, something he has never felt before. He knows it is the Bond, settling unwanted, into his very being.

 

He doesn't want to be Bound to this Alpha. This Alpha who has tortured him and taken him against his will. But there is nothing he can do about it.

 

“All done then?” Fyers asks, stepping back into the tent.

 

Oliver wants to snarl at him. To snap and glare and give the man a good, solid punch. But he cannot, so he simply hangs there, staring out at them through half-lidded eyes.

 

Fyers sweeps his eyes clinically over Oliver's naked body, resting a moment on the bite-mark. The man turns to the Alpha. “Well then,” he says. “Time to ask again, don't you think?”

 

“Where is he?” the Alpha asks, one hand jabbing towards the photo of Yao Fei.

 

For a moment, Oliver panics, thinking that the Bond (and really, he never paid too much attention to that either, just knows that Alphas bind Omegas and that they exist), will somehow compel him to answer.

 

That tingling beneath his skin increases, pushing against him, as though encouraging him to answer. But he doesn't open his mouth. Has no trouble keeping it shut. He can feel the pressure, feel a faint, not-quite-his, desire to submit and give the Alpha whatever he wants.

 

But while it pushes against him, it is not something he is unable to ignore. To push back against.

 

So he clenches his jaw, prying his eyes open enough to glare over at the Alpha.

 

“Where is he?” the Alpha repeats. His voice deepens, thrumming with something that Oliver is pretty sure is what others have meant in the past when talking about Alpha Command. The pressure increases, but again he pushes it away, going so far as to turn his face away.

 

“Where is he?” the Alpha roars, stepping forward, hand darting down to squeeze against the Bite, scent rising up to buffet against Oliver as the Alpha's eyes bore into his.

 

O liver gasps, drawing in  a breath, but refuses to speak.

 

“Fascinating,” Fyers says. There seems to be some kind of grudging respect in his eyes when he looks at Oliver. “Still, perhaps he really doesn't know anything. In which case, we should put him out of his misery.”

 

The Alpha turns, and for a moment Oliver isn't sure whether he's going to agree with Fyers assessment or demand that he be allowed to keep Oliver now that he's claimed him. Oliver isn't even sure which he would prefer.

 

Fyers turns to leave, but the tent flap is pushed towards him, knocking him over as Yao Fei enters. An arrow flies through the air, severing the rope holding Oliver's bound hands up towards the roof. Released, he slumps downwards, even as he tries to get his feet under himself, to be ready to run.

 

Yao Fei and the Alpha fight. A faint trickle under Oliver's skin suggests that he should urge on the Alpha, but he brushes it away.  Yao Fei has saved his life – more than once.

 

Stumbling out of the tent, leaning against Yao Fei, Oliver doesn't even find time to mourn his missing clothes,  although Yao Fei has thoughtfully managed to grab his tattered trousers as they leave.

 

They stumble through the forest and back to the cave, where Yao Fei leaves Oliver, saying that he will draw the others off. There is pride and thanks in his voice when he says that Oliver did not give him up.

 

Yao Fei pauses in the entrance to the cave for a moment, looking back at Oliver, and opens his mouth. Then he closes it, eyes sad, and turns away with another reminder for Oliver to breath.

 

Pushing himself upright, Oliver tries to stumble after him. He doesn't want to be left alone. But Yao Fei does something that makes the entrance to the cave be covered in rocks.

 

Sinking back down to the ground, Oliver lets out a groan. His skin pulls and stings and throbs. He doesn't think he's ever been in so much pain before, and a faint itch under his skin pushes him towards the very Alpha that tortured him.

 

But he is alive, and somewhat safe.

 

Rolling over onto his side, blinking back tears he didn't think he had left to cry, Oliver wishes, not for the first time, that he really wasn't an Omega.


	3. Shengcún

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter, like the last, refers to rape/non-con. It is not explicit, nor dwelt on, however it is referred to. Please be aware of this before continuing to read.

[Starling City 2012]

 

Oliver wakes the morning after his party with aches from the fight the evening before. He is used to them. To the way his muscles pull and burn with each movement, throbbing even when he is still. He knows it will not be long until they settle. The worst is the throb in his head from where he hit it.

 

But he has practise at acting as though there is nothing wrong – and the one who could always tell when he was acting is long gone. A pang shoots through his chest that has nothing to do with his exertion the night before.

 

He is used to pain – had lived through it and with it for so long. Even when his body does not ache, his mind and his heart are unrelenting.

 

He had not known until he had lost it just what it meant to truly lose a Bond – one that was wanted, at least.

 

Skin rubbed down with herbs, scent muted and mutated, Oliver walks down to the kitchen. Raisa is there, humming lightly as she moved around, preparing their breakfast.

 

“Good morning, Raisa,” he says.

 

“Mr Oliver,” she replies, smile warm on her face as she greets him. “You are up early for such a late night.”

 

Oliver laughs – but does not say that he is too used to waking up early to sleep in any more. No matter how late the night.

 

His new bodyguard – Diggle, military Alpha – arrives while he is eating breakfast.

 

“Mr Queen,” he says.

 

“Hey, Dig,” Oliver replies. “You're up early.”

 

The other man gives him a bland look. “I had a feeling it may be necessary. Sir.” He says.

 

Oliver smiles, but his thoughts are far away.

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_

 

The days pass in a haze of pain. The pain of his wounds, of the Bite, of what he went through. The pain of the infection and fever that settles into his skin. The pain that comes of ignoring the itch beneath his skin. Even if he wanted to (which he doesn't), there is no way Oliver can leave through the blocked-off entrance to the cave to find his new Alpha.

 

Soon he finds that he is out of food. Then water. Hunger and thirst add to his misery. He thinks he might die.

 

Opening his eyes, Oliver stares at the image of his father standing across from him.

 

“You're dead,” he rasps out, throat dry and sore. “You left me! You're dead!”

 

His mind is full of disbelief and pain and he just wants it to stop.

 

“I'm sorry,” his father says.

 

Oliver shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No. You can't be here. You can't.”

 

His father takes a step towards him.

 

“Why?” the word is ripped from Oliver's throat, hanging between them. “Why didn't you ever tell me?”

 

“I wanted to protect you.”

 

Oliver scoffs.

 

“I wanted to protect you, son,” his father repeats. “You are so much more than your dynamic. I wanted you to be free from the expectations and restrictions it would bring. I knew how you would be treated should people know.” His gaze becomes sad, falling to Oliver's bare chest (his shirt left behind in the tent where he was tortured) and the Bite there.

 

Oliver shakes his head. “You could have told me,” he says. “You could have told me! I didn't even know!”

 

“You need to find someone to protect you,” his father continues, as though he has not spoken. “Now that I am no longer there to do so.”

 

Oliver just shakes his head once more. Betrayal and pain and despair well up in him. His father offers him a gun. But it is empty.

 

Exhausted, Oliver slumps back to the floor. But even as he does so, the anger begins. It burns bright within him and he grits his teeth. His father thinks him weak. Fyers seeks only information from him. And his torturer follows Fyer's orders. They have all hurt him. All expected him to fail, to cave in.

 

He will not.

 

His gaze rests on a small cage leaning against the side of the cave.

 

Shengcún

 

He will survive.

 

*

 

[Starling City – 2012]

 

Diggle, Oliver finds, is true to his first impression of the bodyguard. That is, he is increasingly hard to get away from. As much as Oliver relishes the challenge and it reminds him of another military Alpha, he can't help but feel that things are never quite right.

 

His hand presses hard against his side, just below his hip, and he ignores that ache that increases in his chest.

 

Instead, he focuses on his mission. On saving the city his father failed. He knows it is probably not the healthiest thing to be doing, but he has lived for years with this pain, and it is the only way he knows how to deal with it – by focusing on something else.

 

“You never smile any more,” Thea tells him, eyes looking deep into his.

 

Oliver shrugs, forcing a smile on his face. “Sure I do,” he replies.

 

“No,” she says, “you just pretend to.”

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_   


There is a scraping sound and Oliver lifts his head, heavy with exhaustion and dehydration to look. The large rocks at the entrance shift away and Yao Fei enters the cave. The older man's nose wrinkles a little as he enters, but Oliver refuses to be ashamed.

 

He was left here, the cave closed up – of course it is heavy with the stench of Omega and s w eat and pain and fear. 

 

Yao Fei seems pleased to see him still alive, but Oliver is not placated.

 

So he yells at Yao Fei instead.  Implacable as always, Yao Fei simply tosses Fyers into the cave.  From somewhere deep inside him, Oliver feels the anger welling up once more. This man did more than torture him – he stole from him, in a way that, despite the Bond, had Oliver's inner Omega rearing up in rage.

 

He punches the man.  It feels good.

 

Y ao Fei says that Fyers has a way for him off the island.

 

*

 

Walking through the forest, stiff from days of lying around and his slowly healing wounds, Oliver tries to ignore Fyers, even as his father's notebook – names revealed by the flames – burns a hole in his mind and the pocket of his pants where he has stashed it.

 

“You're a good man,” Fyers says, eyes raking over Oliver's bare chest, the scabbed wounds and ugly Bite. “I can see it. Well, beneath the privileged upbringing and the wealthy veneer. I saw it when my man tortured you.”

 

Oliver laughs harshly, cutting him off. “Is that what you call it?” he asks.

 

Fyers shrugs. “All things are weapons,” he says, “if applied in the right way. Still, you wouldn't give up your friend. Not even a friend really, someone you just met. Not even under the pressures of the Bond.”

 

“Shut up,” Oliver hisses.

 

Fyers questions what Oliver knows about Yao Fei, speaks of the island as a prison. Says that Yao Fei is one of only two inmates left after the prison was shut down.

 

Oliver stops him to ask about the other, despite the whisper in the back of his mind that says he doesn't want to know.

 

“You've met him,” Fyers says. “He presided over your interrogation.”

 

“He tortured me!” Oliver hisses. “He -” his voice cuts off and his eyes flick away, left hand clenching into a fist at his side as his right tightens it's grasp on the knife Yao Fei gave him.

 

“You had information I needed,” Fyers replied. “What would you do in my position? What would you do to capture the man who had slaughtered dozens of people.”

 

“Not that!” Oliver snarls. His pulse is racing and he reaches out, grasping hold of Fyers and spinning him to force him to keep walking. “Never that,” he says. It is true. Even when he thought himself a Beta, Oliver had frowned at those that spoke of Omega's and the Bond as something to be taken.

 

It was the worst kind of Alpha misogyny against Omegas.  There was nothing that made an Omega lesser than the other two dynamics, and yet they were often treated as such.  Great leaps in progress had been made – including strict laws against forced Bondings,  not to mention the laws against rape .  To hear Fyers speak of it as simply another  way for him to reach his goal made Oliver feel sick.

 

There is an itching, tingling beneath his skin that he does not notice at first. He has lived with the itch for the past number of days and has relegated it to the back of his mind. Annoying, but not something he would dwell on or allow to influence him.

 

It increases.

 

Oliver frowns. He feels like he should know what it means. Instinct pushes at him, anticipation rising. Panic begins to claw at his throat.

 

“Yao Fei!” he gasps out, even as Fyers tells the other man that it was all a trap.

 

Oliver turns before he hears him, instinct, and the pull of the Bond, pointing him towards where his interrogator (his Alpha, his instincts whisper, but he refuses to give the other man that title, that power or respect), is striding towards them.

 

Yao Fei tells Oliver to run. He runs.

 

The Bond pushes at him, tugging back towards where Yao Fei is fighting – but it is not Yao Fei the Bond wants him to return for. Gritting his teeth, Oliver ignores it. He stumbles to a halt near a tree, glancing back to see Yao Fei knocked out.

 

His Bond thrills at the show of strength of his (not his, the) Alpha.

 

The Alpha turns, glancing towards Oliver, before striding away after the soldiers who drag Yao Fei off. It is a dismissal. Oliver's Bond pangs. He feels a savage kind of relief, mixed with the pain of knowing he isn't even worth coming after. This close, the Bond would likely be enough for the Alpha to find him.

 

He runs again.

 

*

 

That evening, in the chill of the island, Oliver manages to start a fire. He crouches over it, absurdly pleased at his ability to do such a thing. Until he hears it. His senses have increased as he has changed from Beta to Omega (or rather from suppressed Omega to Omega), and his hearing is sharper than ever before.

 

Someone is coming.

 

There is no pull on the Bond, so he knows it isn't the Alpha. But that doesn't mean whoever it is is friendly. So far, the island has proven to be full of those who are decidedly unfriendly.

 

Oliver hurries to find somewhere to hide.

 

Pressed up against a tree, he can hear the soldier – dressed in the black of one of Fyer's men – speak into his radio. Saying he has contact. The fire, Oliver realises, was not a good idea. Not when he was being hunted.

 

The Alpha may have turned away, considering Oliver not worth his time, but Fyers obviously doesn't want him left free to run around the island. Perhaps he doesn't even want him left alive.

 

Oliver remembers what Yao Fei taught him about survival. Remembers the feel of the bird's neck snapping beneath his hands.

 

He still has the knife – and grasps it tightly. It shakes, from his fear and the terror of what he knows he must do. But Oliver has decided to survive.

 

He listens, hears the footsteps, the soft rustle of the leaf litter beneath the soldier's boots. Tracks his presence by his movement – then turns and rushes the other man. It is a clumsy attempt, no skill, simply determination to do what needs to be done.

 

The soldier forces the knife from his hand, but Oliver fights on. They fall, tumbling down and over. Oliver tries to orient himself, but everything flashes by too fast.

 

They come to a jarring halt. Oliver is tossed forward by the momentum. Freezing water closes over him.

 

Gasping, Oliver pulls himself upright. The cold has settled deep into his bones, but he forces himself to make his way towards a nearby rock. The stream flows gently over him, but he still feels vulnerable without solid ground beneath his feet.

 

He can smell the soldier nearby and hurriedly looks around. The other man is bent unnaturally backwards over a rock by the stream's edge – what must have stopped their fall. Oliver knows it is only chance that it is the soldier who is dead and he who is alive.

 

He shivers from the cold of the water, his breath misting before him. He is shirtless and his pants are more shorts than trousers. So he pulls himself from the stream and approaches the dead solider. He does not want to – but more than that, he wants to survive.

 

So he strips the soldier, taking his clothes to replace his own lost or sodden ones. He is still stiff from his healing wounds, but manages to drag the soldier over by a dip in the ground near a tree. He has no time or skill to dig a grave, so settles for covering the dead man with branches. It is partly out of respect, and partly from a need to hide the body.

 

There are keys and a map in the soldier's vest. A camp is marked on the map. Oliver wonders if he dares.

 

He stops first by the cave to rub more of Yao Fei's herbs over his skin. He wishes he knew more about the Bond – so that he can try and prevent the Alpha from feeling his approaching presence, but doesn't, so can only hope the Alpha, like him, will not be familiar with the feeling and will dismiss it.

 

Scent muted, Oliver sets out once more. He will try to save Yao Fei.

 

*

 

The rescue does not go at all how Oliver hoped it would. The balaclava helps him to approach the camp, the Alpha does not appear (or feel, through the Bond) to be around. But Fyers is – and he seems to have no trouble realising Oliver is not one of his men.

 

The real shock comes when Oliver sees that Yao Fei is now working for Fyers. It is not something he ever thought the other man would do. It makes him angry. Beneath his skin, his Bond with the Alpha prickles, showing that the Alpha is once more nearby (though he doesn't approach). Oliver's fear of the Alpha makes him even angrier.

 

After some time, Oliver is taken from the cage they had trapped him in to where a ring of Soldiers stand. He doesn't understand what is happening, but feels his Bond hum. The Alpha is there. (Many of the soldiers are Alphas, with the occasional Beta, but Oliver finds it more comforting to think of his torturer as the Alpha rather than his Alpha – he refuses to give the man that title, not even in his own head).

 

As they approach, Oliver realises that there is a fight going on inside the circle of soldiers. The Alpha is there, fighting another man. It is obvious that the Alpha is far more skilled, and will easily win. His blows land multiple times on his opponent. Each time, Oliver feels his Bond pulse – Omega instincts happy at this show of strength. He pushes them down and away, choosing instead to look on with disgust at the display.

 

The Alpha wins – delivering the killing blow with his sword. Oliver remembers that sword and the pain it inflicted on him – deliberately bringing up those memories to push back the instinctual rush of pride at the Alpha's win.

 

Fyers asks if anyone else wants to try, and Yao Fei pushes Oliver into the ring.

 

For a moment, he feels himself freeze. Fear and instincts war within him. Fear of the man who tortured him. Instincts clamouring for him to submit. There is another instinct, however, one he was not expecting. One that tells him to fight – to prove to the Alpha that he is not weak. That he has worth. To make the Alpha prove his worth by beating him.

 

He knows that if he fights he will die – or perhaps the Alpha will decide to keep the Omega he has claimed instead, after thoroughly beating him. He refuses to think of the other way the Alpha could react to his presence.

 

The Alpha says nothing, simply standing opposite him. Impassive. As though they had not met, as though there was no Bond.

 

In some ways, Oliver prefers that it remain unacknowledged between them.

 

Fyers suggests that Yao Fei may want to fight instead. Oliver wonders if he will die at the hands of the man he had thought a friend – or at least an ally.

 

Yao Fei attacks. Oliver, as he predicted, is no match for the man. Without conscious thought or approval, his eyes seek out the Alpha, where he stands unmoving in the circle. The other soldiers jeer and laugh. The Alpha does neither. Instincts scream at Oliver, asking why the Alpha does nothing to help him.

 

He reminds himself that the Alpha isn't his Alpha, not really. There may be a Bond between them, but it was created as part of his torture – to try and rip information from him.

 

As he gasps for breath, the life being choked from him, Oliver sees the Alpha shift, as though wanting to take a step forward, before stopping himself. Oliver can feel himself weakening, knows the end is coming – but he takes a small comfort from the fact that he is not the only one being affected by the Bond.

 

Everything goes dark.

 

*

 

Oliver does not expect to wake. He does so underwater. Eyes flying open, he breathes in water before he can push himself to the surface, gasping air and coughing up the water he swallowed.

 

He is in a river, and struggles to the shore where he climbs out unsteadily. Coughing, covered in bruises, wounds still healing, he is surprised, but glad, to be alive.

 

There is still a map in his vest, but it is not the one he used to find the camp. This one has another area on the island marked on it.

 

An area marked Shengcún.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And - FINALLY! - next chapter Oliver gets to meet Slade!


	4. Slade

[Starling City – 2012]

 

Time passes. Slowly, Oliver continues to cross the names off his father's list. He is constantly tired – but that is something he learnt to deal with long ago. And he isn't sure what he would do if he ever woke up completely rested. It has become a foreign concept.

 

So instead he focuses on his mission, on trying to help his instincts integrate Walter into his life and family – they won't, not when he denies them any expression. Without the scenting that he needs as an Omega, his instincts will never fully trust or accept Walter. But he can't let anyone know about his status, and so does the best he can.

 

Detective Lance believes Oliver is the Arrow and has him arrested. Dig comes through for him and the suspicion is removed. Oliver and Thea continue to try and patch up their relationship, but Thea is smart enough to know that he is holding back and Oliver isn't sure how to get closer to her without giving up the secret of his dynamic.

 

Some days, he wakes up cursing the fact that he is an Omega.

 

Before immediately feeling ashamed and guilty. As difficult as it was and is, it also gave him one of the greatest gifts of his life.

 

*

 

_[Lian Yu – 2007]_

  
Oliver follows the map Yao Fei left with him. He is wary as he travels, constantly looking over his shoulder and afraid that one of the mercenaries will come for him. He isn't sure where the map is leading him, but quickly becomes fairly sure that it isn't leading him back towards Yao Fei's cave.

 

Around him the forest sits close, pushing down on him. His own scent drifts on the air, fear and panic and pain and, beneath that, _Omega_.  He is stiff and sore, but as he walks, his muscles begin to loosen up.

 

He considers heading back to the cave – he thinks he may be able to find it – in order to get some more of the herbs. But he is worried that Fyers knows where the cave is. It is likely safer, he thinks, to stay away.

 

So he follows the map instead.

 

It leads him to a downed plane. It is lying in sections, the nose split from another section of the body and a larger section lying at the back. The wings no longer attached, nor the tail. He isn't sure why Yao Fei would send him here, but hopes that there is something useful inside.

 

Maybe, just maybe, there is a radio, and he will be able to call home.

 

There is a faint scent of Alpha around the plane, but most of the island carries traces of the scent – Fyers' camps are full of Alpha mercenaries. He can't see or hear anyone, and doubts that Yao Fei would send him into danger.

 

So Oliver enters the plane. Stepping inside, he looks around, moving further into the interior. There is nothing he can see that immediately makes him think of safety or a way to get off the island. Despite that, he feels himself relaxing minutely.

 

Then he is grabbed from behind.

 

The arms that wrap around him are thick and strong, steel bands that he knows he has no hope of fighting off. There is a blade at his throat and he gasps, breathing in air quickly in fear, body caught between wanting to fight and the fear that doing so will only harm him further.

 

“Twitch,” a rough voice hisses, “and I will open your throat. How many more with you?”

 

“What?” Oliver asks. He can feel the adrenalin rushing through his veins, even as he tries to hold still, to show that he is no threat. The scent of Alpha is thick in his nostrils, each breath reinforcing the dominance of the man behind him.

 

It is something no 'civilised' Alpha would do (or so they say, Oliver has seen it happen in bars across Starling at various times). Using their scent to show dominance and power, to try and force others to answer or fall into line.

 

When he had seen it in the past, Oliver had laughed and not thought much of it. His Beta (suppressed-Omega) nose didn't pick up on the scents the way others did. To him it had been simply a whole lot of posturing.

 

His Omega instincts, he realises, have a much different opinion. They react to the Alpha scent, informing him that it would be best to submit. To do whatever the Alpha asks of him. That the Alpha is stronger and must be obeyed.

 

Still, it is like the Bond with his... torturer. He can push past it. If only he knew what the Alpha behind him actually wanted.

 

“You have ten seconds to tell me something I believe before I cut out your voice box,” the Alpha informs him.

 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” Oliver exclaims. “Yao Fei sent me here and I'm pretty sure it wasn't so you could kill me.”

 

The Alpha thrusts him away. Without looking he knows, his instincts tell him, that the Alpha is strong, rough, and has little patience. Turning, he takes in his first sight of the Alpha. A little shorter than Oliver, but not by much. The Alpha has dark hair and eyes, deeply tanned skin, and is dressed like a solider. Though not in the black of Fyers' men.

 

The Alpha lifts his blade, pointing it at Oliver so that it rests just before his nose.

 

“What?” the Alpha asks.

 

“Yao Fei,” Oliver repeats, gaze fixed on the blade, before he drags it up to look across at the Alpha. His instincts scream at him to submit, but he pushes past them to hold his ground, even as the fear pours off him in his scent. “He gave me directions to your.... plane.”

 

The Alpha simply stares at him. Oliver swallows, not sure what else he should do. Instinct, or perhaps simply fear, continues to suggest submission. Instead, he continues to meet the Alpha's eyes.

 

He waits for the Alpha to make some kind of comment about the fact that he is an Omega. But it never happens.

 

“Directions?” the Alpha asks.

 

Nodding, Oliver fishes out the map, handing it over. The Alpha spreads it out over a crate, staring down at it. His finger taps against Yao Fei's writing.

 

“Shengcún,” he says.

 

“It's Chinese,” Oliver says. “It, it means -”

 

“Survive,” the Alpha says at the same time as him. A faint part of Oliver makes note that the Alpha is smart – smart enough, at any rate, to know some Chinese.

 

Ignoring that, Oliver forces himself to keep his focus on the Alpha. “What do you think he meant?” he asks, “besides not getting killed?” There is a part of him, the part that remembers his father's words, that wonders whether Yao Fei simply sent him away to another Alpha in order to survive. Because that is what is done with Omegas. They are sent to an Alpha to be protected.

 

He doesn't want to say that to this Alpha, however. Nor is he sure he wants that to be the reason. Other than getting him to cover up his scent, and teaching him to start actually using his new sense of smell, Yao Fei had pretty much ignored the fact that he was an Omega.

 

If it was up to Oliver, he would continue to ignore it himself.

 

But there is a Bond, unwanted, that tugs gently beneath his skin. He can smell his own fear, and the Alpha is staring at him once more, eyes assessing.

 

Once more, the Alpha makes no comment on Oliver's status. Instead, he tells him about an airfield, a plan, a way off the island. Then he throws Oliver a blade.

 

Oliver's not sure whether it's meant to be a really long knife, or some kind of sword. Whatever it is, it's sharp and deadly. And the Alpha wants to test that Oliver can fight, orders him to fight.

 

Instincts press against Oliver, wanting him to impress the Alpha, even as they shy away from doing so, insisting he already has an Alpha. But Oliver is no fighter. Doesn't even know where to start. The Alpha easily overpowers him (the Alpha is strong, his instincts insist), while both giving him instructions and berating him.

 

Oliver's instincts rail against the Alpha's words, wanting to prove his worth. But Oliver ignores them, instead reminding the Alpha that he's no soldier. That the only man he's ever killed, well, that was an accident.

 

Some small part of his mind wonders why the Alpha even thinks that an Omega could fight or kill (no-one back in Starling City would have thought so). Another part, while frustrated as he knows he doesn't have those skills, is pleased the Alpha isn't treating him the way he expected to be treated as an Omega.

 

“He told me to run, and I did,” Oliver explains.

 

The expression that crosses the Alpha's face is one of both pain and something else Oliver can't quite determine. He isn't sure exactly what about his explanation has caused it. But he has only a moment to wonder, because then the Alpha knocks him out.

 

*

 

Oliver wakes sitting in a chair with his arms tied behind him. The Alpha apologises and says it's not personal.

 

“So what? You're just going to kill me?” Oliver asks, the fear pumping off him in waves. The Alpha's sword is at his neck. It is not the first time he has had this particular Alpha's blade at his throat. Nor the first time an Alpha has threatened (or cut) him with a blade.

 

That does little to dim his fear. Instead, it seems to increase it.

 

Oliver, the Alpha informs him, if left alive, would be captured, tortured, and give up his location. Oliver feels a flash of anger and frustration at that – he had already been captured and tortured, and refused to give up Yao Fei's location. This was perhaps the first area in which he felt he could lay claim to any skill or experience (as much as he didn't want it in the first place).

 

Not only that, but he had refused the pull of the Bond in order to still keep Yao Fei's location secret. To be told so bluntly that he will be killed because the Alpha thinks him too weak to succeed where he already has makes him want to snarl.

 

But beneath the anger is the fear. He is an Omega, the man opposite him is an Alpha. As much as recent experience has taught him that it isn't always the case, Oliver has always been told that Alphas want to protect Omegas. Their instincts tell them to.

 

So he widens his eyes, lets his panic creep into his voice, and flings himself up from the chair towards the Alpha. And he begs. Says 'please don't', and 'I won't tell'. He makes no effort hold back the scent of fear that pours off him.

 

The Alpha shoves him back into the chair, making Oliver gasp. Well, that plan had failed.

 

Instead, as the Alpha offers him a painless death, Oliver wrenches at his hands, tied behind his back. Wrenches until he feels a sharp pain that makes him cry out and double over, even as his hands slip free of his bonds.

 

The Alpha just stands there, watching him. Making no move to stop him.

 

Standing up, Oliver brings his hand round and punches the Alpha in the face. It is perhaps one of his more stupid ideas, his brain informs him. Society has let him know that Omegas should always defer to Alphas. Punching one in the face pretty much goes against all of that.

 

Not to mention the fact that this particular Alpha was ready to kill him.

 

He expects retaliation. Perhaps pain. Perhaps death.

 

The Alpha grabs him by the shoulder, pulling him upright (the pain in his hand was not helped by the punch), and then laughs. The Alpha's face splits into a wide grin and his eyes sparkle. He shakes Oliver's hand.

 

“Slade Wilson,” he says.

 

“Oliver Queen,” Oliver replies.

 

“Well Oliver Queen,” Slade says, “there might be a fighter inside of you after all.” His bright grin returns.

 

Blinking, stunned at the turn of events, Oliver isn't quite sure how to react. But for now, at least he's still alive.

 

*

 

The Alpha tosses Oliver a bandage, instructing him on how to affix it to his arm in order to minimise the pain he is in and make sure he doesn't do any further damage to himself. The Alpha's, Slade's, words are much harsher than that, and he makes no move to help Oliver beyond his gruff instructions.

 

He is unlike any Alpha Oliver has ever met before. It is intriguing.

 

Then Slade informs Oliver that he has no more chances and may still be killed. Frowning, Oliver replies that Slade needs him just as much as he needs the Alpha. Slade gives a small smile that he covers with his hand, but Oliver catches it.

 

Strange, that this Alpha seems to prefer it when Oliver stands up for himself and fights back – so unlike the 'society' Alphas he is used to.

 

Talk of training and weapons has Oliver staring in horror at the mask he knows so well. The mask of the man who tortured him. He lets his anger push him into a confrontation with Slade, who denies it. Says he has a partner.

 

The Bond pulses and Oliver pushes back against it, wanting to rip it away from him, but at least it doesn't lead back to Slade. As much as the sight of the mask made him panic, he knows Slade isn't the Alpha he is Bound to.

 

Stray, almost unacknowledged, the thought crosses his mind that it may be better if Slade was. At least, so far, the Alpha hasn't actually hurt him too much.

 

*

 

Training is, well, not that fun.

 

Slade leads Oliver out to a field, where he proceeds to make Oliver attempt to fight him. Again, and again and again. It does nothing for Oliver's ego that each time Slade throws him to the ground he pulls out his knife, presses it to Oliver's throat and informs that, once again, he is 'dead'.

 

Then they move on to using short sticks of bamboo. At first, Oliver thinks he is doing okay, but it is less than a minute before Slade has managed to strike Oliver across the face. He falls to his hands and knees from the force of the blow, before pushing himself upright once more. Oliver's muscles ache, and he isn't sure exactly what the purpose of all this is.

 

“How did you survive here for six months?” Slade asks. “I know girl scouts who have more fight in them.”

 

Oliver can't help his response, cheeky grin crossing his face as he says, “Fighting girl scouts now, Slade, huh?”

 

Slade responds by striking Oliver's hand with one of his bamboo sticks. It stings, and Oliver cries out.

 

“What the hell?” he demands. For all that he is pleased Slade doesn't treat him like a weak little Omega, he isn't sure that Slade's actual treatment of him is any better. In direct opposition to everything Oliver was taught by society about Alphas and Omegas, the Alpha seems determined to keeping striking him in some strange kind of 'teaching' that Oliver doesn't understand.

 

Slade simply tells Oliver to take it seriously – they only have ten days before they need to take the supply plane, so Oliver needs to shape up.

 

He tries. He honestly tries – but Slade is all soldier. The man has to have years of training behind him, so it is no wonder that Oliver is no match for him.

 

When Oliver, stinging from yet another hit, demands to know why they are fighting with bamboo when the soliders have guns, Slade pulls out his gun, handing it, butt first, to Oliver.

 

“Jam this in my face,” he says.

 

Oliver's eyes flick between Slade and the gun. Everything the Alpha does confuses him.

 

“Do it!” Slade insists, Alpha Command leaking into his voice.

 

Taking the gun, swallowing past the fear and the instincts that insist he shouldn't attack an Alpha, Oliver raises the gun towards Slade.

 

The Alpha reacts immediately. One moment Oliver has the gun pointed directly at Slade's face. The next his arm is batted away, there is a pain in his side, and he finds himself thrown to the ground. Rolling over to face Slade, Oliver raises his hands.

 

“I give up,” he says, “I give up.” There is no way he is ever going to be any kind of match for the Alpha.

 

Slade hauls him upright, gun pointed straight at Oliver's forehead. “There is no giving up to these guys,” he snarls, “no crying or buying your way out of it. You have two choices, escape, or die. So choose.” Slade's eyes bore into Oliver's, strong and determined.

 

Oliver feels his spine straightening, that same determination he'd felt when trapped, alone, in Yao Fei's cave returning to him. He will survive. He will prove to this Alpha that he can do it.

 

“Escape,” he says.

 

Slade gives the barest nod. “Then let me show you,” he says, “how not to die.” Pushing Oliver away, he throws him one of the bamboo sticks.

 

Catching it, Oliver moves in to attack. He is determined to succeed.

 

*

 

The days pass. Slade continues to push Oliver, forcing him to push himself. Slowly, Oliver starts to pick up some of what the Alpha is trying to teach him. He moves through the motions. Again and again and again.

 

One the ninth day, when they finally finish training – or what Oliver privately thinks of as Slade beating him up, they return once more to the downed airplane.

 

Slade stretches out a map on some crates. “Lian Yu,” he says.

 

“It's the name of the island, I know,” Oliver says, “it's Mandarin for purgatory.” It's only after he's finished speaking that he realises just how eagerly the words had come to him. Insincts pushing him to try and prove his worth to the Alpha. The Alpha that has looked after him (if you can call that it – his instincts seem to think so) for just over a week.

 

Slade looks over to him. “It is. Wonderful,” he says. Oliver isn't sure whether it's meant to be an acknowledgement of his knowledge or simply sarcasm. Slade continues to explain the map. When Oliver mentions Yao Fei, Slade tells him to forget the other man.

 

Slade's mention of being held captive for almost a year sinks deep into Oliver's mind. His instincts rise up in response, wanting to reassure, to comfort, but he pushes them aside. He doubts Slade is the kind to want comfort.

 

“There are at least ten soldiers guarding the perimeter at any one time,” Slade says.

 

“Too many of them for you?” Oliver asks.

 

“No.” The quiet assurance with which Slade says the word has something in Oliver taking notice. Slade goes on to explain that Oliver's job is to take out the tower guard. Up close and personal. “Are you ready for that?” he asks.

 

Oliver isn't quite sure what to think. The island has already brought about so many changes. He's gone from knowing he was a Beta, to trying to learn to live as an Omega. He's been tortured by an Alpha, and now another Alpha is asking him if he thinks he can kill.

 

“Do you think I'm ready?” he asks instead of answering. He half wants Slade to reassure him, and half truly wants to know what the other man thinks of the skills he's managed to beat into him over the last week or so.

 

“What I think,” Slade says, “is there is only one supply plane every three months. We leave tomorrow, or we die soon afterwards. I'd be leaving.”

 

It isn't what Oliver wanted to hear, yet somehow seems to suit what he knows of Slade so far. He nods.

 

“So get some sleep,” Slade adds, “we leave at 0600.”

 

Moving to his 'bed', Oliver pulls out the picture of Laurel that he's managed to keep so far. He stares down at it, unsure exactly what to think. Before, before all this, the island, his new knowledge of his dynamic, he had thought, at times, that she was it for him.

 

But Laurel doesn't know he's really an Omega. Will probably never forgive him for what happened to Sara. So he settles for simply wanting to return and ask her forgiveness – to let her know he's sorry.

 

“Don't worry,” Slade says, “you'll be back with your girlfriend soon enough.”

 

Oliver glances over at him, wondering whether to say anything. He wonders what Slade thinks of Laurel. There is no way the Alpha doesn't know Oliver is Omega – not when they've spent over a week together, Oliver's Omega pheromones pumping off him in waves each time he worked up a sweat during their training. Does Slade think Laurel is his Alpha? Does he even care?

 

Saying nothing, Oliver lies down. Beneath his skin, the Bond pulses gently, reminding him of its presence. He wishes he could forget it. That it really was as simple as him being able to go home to Laurel.

 

But everything has changed.

 

He has changed.

 

*

 

The next morning, Slade wakes Oliver early. As they gather their things (or rather, Slade throws bags at Oliver, before grabbing his own) to leave, Slade pauses over the mask. Oliver feels a spike of fear, which he tries to clamp down on. Slade puts the mask back. Oliver likes to think it's done for his benefit, but Slade says nothing, and he isn't sure.

 

Slade leads them easily threw the forest. As much as Oliver tries to ignore it, his instincts point out to him the strength and confident ease of the Alpha before him. He'd thought that, with the Bond, his instincts would have been focuses solely on his Bonded. But somehow they seem to know that the Bond is unwanted.

 

Then Oliver steps on a mine.

 

“Don't move!” Slade instructs him. Oliver is only too happy to listen to his instincts and obey that instruction.

 

Slade confirms it is a mine, and it is active. They hear soldiers coming.

 

“They're going to see us,” Oliver hisses.

 

Reaching out, Slade grabs the bags from him. “They're going to see you,” he replies.

 

“Wait! Stop!” Oliver hisses, but Slade vanishes into the forest. Oliver doesn't dare move, even as he feels frustration and anger well up at Slade's abandonment.

 

All he can think to do is put the balaclava over his head, so that the soldiers think he is one of them. Despite himself, Oliver hopes that Slade has a plan.

 

Slade does.

 

The Alpha yells as he rushes the soldiers. Instinctively, Oliver ducks down, making himself small before the Alpha's fury, arms over his head. It puts him out of Slade's way, and the Alpha makes quick work of killing the soldiers.

 

When Oliver looks up, mere seconds later, Slade is kneeling before him.

 

“Be still,” the Alpha orders. He rolls one of the dead soldiers towards Oliver, shoving him off the mine as he does so. The dead soldier lies on the mine, Slade holding him there. It doesn't go off.

 

Stunning, Oliver stares at Slade. That had been a rather risky move.

 

“Thanks,” Oliver says as Slade helps him up. His instincts are pleased to note that the Alpha just risked his life for Oliver's.

 

*

 

As they walk, Oliver notices some plants growing by the base of some of the trees. Pausing, he moves over to have a look at it.

 

“This isn't a nature walk,” Slade informs him.

 

“Hang on,” Oliver says, reaching down and plucking some of the plants. He is right. They are the same herbs Yao Fei had given him to hide his scent. He grins.

 

“Kid,” Slade insists.

 

“This won't take long,” Oliver replies, “and you'll be thankful for it.” Grabbing up as many of the herbs as he can, he crushes them, rubbing them over his exposed skin.

 

Slade frowns, before his face clears as he gets a whiff of Oliver's muted, Beta-smelling, scent.

 

“Huh,” he says.

 

Gathering up some more herbs, Slade crushes them, helping Oliver to rub them against the rest of his body and clothing.

 

Oliver tries to ignore the way his instincts take note of that act.

 

Before long, his scent is muted and hidden once more, instead, he smells like a Beta. They move on.

 

*

 

They stop to camp that evening, Oliver spending his time trying to light a fire, while Slade pulls apart, cleans, and puts back together again his Sniper Rifle. When Oliver gets angry enough to snap back at Slade's snide comments about his lack of success, suggesting the other man help, Slade gives him a lighter.

 

“Seriously?” Oliver asks. “I've been working on this for two hours.” He wants to be angry, but is simply tired. That, and his instincts preen at Slade once more providing for him.

 

“I know,” Slade replied. “I was watching. Thank you, for the entertainment.” He grins.

 

Oliver wants to blame his instincts for the fact that he can't get properly angry at Slade, but he knows that, despite it all, he can also see the humour in it. It is not simply instinct that makes him glad to have amused the other man.

 

Once the fire is going strong, and they are settling in the for the night, Oliver pulls out of the picture of Laurel once more. He isn't entirely sure why he does so – but figures that, if nothing else, it is a reminder of the life he is trying to get back to.

 

His conversation with Slade brings up Sara, what he did, and why he has to get back. To make it right. Oliver almost mentions that Laurel has no idea he's an Omega, but then Slade informs him that everybody is in this life for themselves.

 

Slade goes on to explain that the guy who tortured Oliver (his Alpha, Oliver's mind whispers traitorously), used to be his partner. Was the godfather to Slade's son. Oliver doesn't want to hear this. Doesn't want to know. He finally has a name for the faceless Alpha who tortured and Bonded him. Billy Wintergreen. He thinks he'd rather never have known the Alpha's name. He tries not to give away how uncomfortable the conversation makes him. How the Bond beneath his skin prickles as Slade speaks of the other Alpha.

 

Still, where Wintergreen failed, giving in to Fyers, Slade succeeded. Oliver remembers Slade saying he was held captive for almost a year – that's almost a year during which Slade continued to succeed.

 

*

 

Oliver's heart is racing as they reach the airfield. Slade pulls out one of his swords, giving it to Oliver. Oliver knows there is nothing but practicality in the gesture, his instincts, however, insist pride in the fact that Slade trusts him with it.

 

“If you let him radio camp,” Slade says, “we're done.”

 

“What about the others?” Oliver asks as he accepts the sword.

 

“You worry about your one, I'll worry about my ten,” Slade tells him. There is confidence in the Alpha's voice. Oliver nods. He moves through the darkness.

 

His heart is pounding so hard he can hear it beating in his ears. Adrenalin races through his body. Pulling the balaclava down over his head, Oliver realises that, despite all that, he trusts Slade. Even with his face hidden, making him look like just another of the soldiers, Oliver has no fear that Slade will shoot him by mistake, nor that the other man will let any of the soldiers harm him.

 

There is a shot, one of the soldiers falls. Oliver runs, ducking down behind some barrels and netting. Two soliders move past, carrying a crate. Slade takes them out.

 

Spring up, Oliver dashes round his cover, only to come face to face with another solider. He only has a moment to register the shock and slight frisson of fear, before that soldier also falls.

 

Oliver makes his way to the tower, confident of Slade's protection. Reaching the top of the stairs, he peers through the window. Just as Slade said, there is a man inside. Despite the fact that he is facing only one solider now, compared to the ten who could have potentially attacked him as he made his way here, Oliver is more nervous than he has been all night so far.

 

Those ten were Slade's to deal with, and he is confident of the man's ability to do so. This one is Oliver's to take out, and he isn't sure he can.

 

He manages to get inside, but hesitates, trying to knock the man out instead of stabbing him. The soldier reacts, and pulls a gun. Oliver tries to use what Slade has been teaching him to disarm the man, but fails even at that. He is certain he is going to die.

 

The man reaches for the phone, no doubt to call for backup, or call off the plane. Something.

 

Slade's blade slides through the man, and he falls.

 

“One job to do, and you managed to screw up even that,” Slade says, but there's an almost grin on his face. They have succeeded.

 

Slade leaves to check things are clear, leaving Oliver with the soldier's gun and instructions to try not to shoot himself by mistake. Oliver wants to glare and snarl in response, angry that Slade still thinks so little of him. But the fact is that he hasn't really done anything to prove himself.

 

Slade's right, he screwed up the one thing he was meant to do (but Slade rescued him, as usual, his instincts remind him).

 

With Slade gone, Oliver's gaze is drawn to the phone, just sitting there. It has been months, and with a few simple actions, he could call someone. His mother. Or Laurel. Tommy. The very thought is overwhelming.

 

But even as he steps towards it, he realises that it is something Slade wouldn't want him to do. No doubt with something thrown in there about the danger making a call could put them in. So he hesitates.

 

Just long enough for Slade to return. Slade notices Oliver's gaze, the way his hand hovers in the air, and simply move him out of the way.

 

“They could be monitoring the calls,” the Alpha says, “you can call when we get off here.” There is a spark of approval in his eyes for Oliver's restraint, which makes Oliver absurdly pleased he didn't actually pick up the phone.

 

The plane radios in, and Slade responds. The plane gives them a challenge code.

 

Oliver feels his heart sink. How will they know they answer? He can see the desperation in Slade's eyes as well, even as the man asks them to repeat it.

 

And Oliver knows it. The relief is almost giddying. He knows the answer!

 

Slade asks if he is sure. Oliver is. He corrects himself at the last moment, but their answer is accepted.

 

Oliver laughs in relief, while basking in the warmth in Slade's eyes. They will be going home.

 

Then Slade mentions that he's going to call in an air strike. And Oliver knows he can't leave Yao Fei there to die (his instincts insist that he also has to save his Bonded, but he ignores that as best he can).

 

“Wait,” Oliver says, “you can't blow up the island. Yao Fei is still out there.”

 

“He is not my concern,” Slade says, striding back over to Oliver.

 

“Really?” Oliver asks. “He's the only reason you came here. Rescuing him was your mission.” Stepping forward, Oliver pokes at Slade in the chest, getting in his face.

 

“Well the mission has changed,” Slade replies, pressing back into Oliver's space. His Alpha presence pushes against Oliver, but he ignores it. “Edward Fyers is a mercenary and he is not on this island by mistake. He has plans for Lian Yu that involve Yao Fei, and whatever they are, they must end.” Slade is so close to Oliver that he can feel the older man's breath fan across his face as he speaks.

 

“Yao Fei saved my life,” Oliver says.

 

“That is your debt to reply, not mine,” Slade tells him.

 

Oliver stares at him for a moment. Slade stares back impassively. So Oliver steps past him, heading for the door. He knows what he must do.

 

Slade grabs Oliver's arms as he passes, but Oliver wrenches himself free, ignoring the instincts that scream at him to submit to the Alpha, to do whatever he wants.

 

“Where are you going?” Slade demands.

 

“All my life,” Oliver replies, “all that I've ever thought about is myself. I took my family for granted, I betrayed people that I loved, and I'm not going to be that person anymore. I can't leave Yao Fei here to die. I won't.”

 

Slade stares back at him. For a moment, Oliver thinks he sees something in Slade's gaze. Something almost like approval. Then Slade speaks.

 

“The plane leaves in three hours,” Slade says, “if you and you're friend are not on it, I am going to leave without you.”

 

Oliver nods. He had hoped that Slade would have been different. But perhaps Slade is right, and everyone is in this life for themselves.

 

His instincts scream that Slade should come with him. Protect him. Oliver knows better than to ask. He doesn't need an Alpha anyway (has one already, one he doesn't want).

 

He pauses by the doorway. “If I don't make it back in time,” he says, “and you get out of here... I want you to call my family... call my family.”

 

Slade nods. “Sure, kid,” he says.

 

Oliver leaves. He doubts he will ever see Slade again. Knows, even as he knows he has to try, that it is unlikely he will manage to rescue Yao Fei and make it back to the airfield in three hours.

 

Despite that, he has never been more sure of a decision in his life.


End file.
